


What Comes After?

by widdlewed



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Relationships, Protective Ned Leeds, Tagged M for these heavy themes, Using space as a metaphor, no beta we die like cowards, talk of stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/widdlewed/pseuds/widdlewed
Summary: In the privacy of his mind, Ned liked to pretend he could accurately measure his best friend’s sudden switch in a mockery of the abbreviated B.S. and A.S.Before Skip and After Skip.





	What Comes After?

**Author's Note:**

> This might not make a lot of sense - I just kinda typed it out lol so sorry if it's... weird?? 
> 
> Steven 'Skip' Westcott was introduced in a Special Comic about sexual abuse. Peter Parker suffered abuse at the hands of Skip, a high schooler, at the time. 
> 
> I just kinda wanted to get this out of my system? Sorry.

In the privacy of his mind, Ned liked to pretend he could accurately measure his best friend’s sudden switch in a mockery of the abbreviated B.S. and A.S. 

Before Skip and After Skip. 

Before Skip, Peter glowed brighter than the sun in the sky, the fire in his soul searing with an intensity that could not be easily extinguished. His potential was limitless, undeterred by the cruelty of reality. His heart was enormous, expanding to encompass and swallow any who’d get close enough. 

After Skip, Peter was nothing but an ember of his former self, a tiny little flare in the hearth that once housed a roaring inferno. The shadows that used to stay away had all but swallowed him up, hungry to further corrupt his already dwindling light. He was stunted, tossed from his weaving path to a rocky, thorn-coated trail with no certain end. His heart was closed off, locked up and chained into a fortitude impenetrable. Despite the warmth that wanted to burst free, unless you were a key holder to his binds, you never got it. 

Ned liked to pretend, in the four walls of his bedroom late at night when he couldn’t sleep, that Skip never happened. That Skip was a bad dream, a bogeyman haunting his best friend’s heels when the sun was set low. He liked to pretend Skip hadn’t hurt Peter in ways that could never be repaired, hadn’t taught his friend how to give and take trust like it was expected to hurt. 

He wished Skip hadn’t existed; hadn’t existed in their world, in their universe of stars and superheroes and innocence ripped away with steel-tight malice. 

Some days, during a particularly successful Decathalon meeting or during a peaceful lunch period, Ned caught the tiny glimpses of B.S. Peter under the heavy layers of protection built up. Some days, his words were stolen from his throat and the air was captured by the sudden familiar laugh Peter would release, so clear and light, and nothing like the soft chuckles he’d normally produce. 

Because Peter couldn't be too loud - Skip had conditioned that out of him. Wicked and vile, the then teen had tried to stifle the volume of Peter's soul. And for the most part, it'd worked. He still talked, still got excited, but it was muted compared to what it _could have been_.

Some days, Michelle stared at Ned, who’d be looking at Peter, seeing those flares of the inferno burning inside his friend. She wouldn’t ever say anything - what could she, she was a foreign entity orbiting their very exclusive universe- but something in her gaze always made Ned squirm. She was an unidentified star on their outer orbit, gravitating towards the cosmic pull Peter produced. She was like Ned, Peter’s Moon to his Planet, circling in hopes of staying in that inner loop. 

But she kept her mouth shut and her eyes sharp and Ned never tried to knock her out of orbit. It was mutual respect. 

There was a lot about Peter that Ned missed from Before - before the bite, before Uncle Ben, before Skip. His smiles were the biggest thing, along with those hugs that were so rare nowadays. 

Before Skip, Peter would cling to Ned like he was to disappear the moment he let go. Before Skip, touch wasn’t something to fear or be wary of - it was how Peter communicated when words failed him, how he broadcasted his emotions when his mind just couldn’t understand it properly. 

But now he shied away when a classmate touched his hand to get a paper and when Ned went to touch his shoulder he had to be slow about it to let Peter know it was coming. 

Steven “Skip” Westcott did more damage to Peter in the long run than in the entirety of the hours accrued in those long months he was in their orbit. 

A.S. Peter couldn’t look at Albert Einstein the same way. Any T-shirt he had in his closet with the man’s name, face, or quotes was destroyed in fitful tears of fabric and red-hot salt-water down his cheeks. Any utterance of the sarcastic nickname from a rude classmate was shot down with a well-honed glare from Ned. 

After Skip, Peter couldn’t handle sleepovers unless it was at his own house with the bedroom door open. The bedroom door stayed open more often than not and if it weren’t for years of having to handle having the hall-light stream through in bright ribbons, Ned would have been annoyed at the first night spent over. 

After Skip, Peter couldn’t change in the locker room with the other boys after gym class. Ned would wait for him, ignoring the curious or sneering looks of their peers, and give Peter the privacy to change in the stall while he shooed away any stragglers. 

After Skip, Peter couldn’t handle any Sex Ed classes that dealt with sexual acts or the talk of male genitalia. The first time he sat through a class as the teacher explained the male sex organ, Peter had nearly thrown up right then and there. Ned had shot up readily to escort him out. Uncle Ben had visited the school after that and, during a private discussion that included the principal, school nurse, and the school counselor, came to the agreement that he’d take an alternative class instead. Ned practically begged to be switched to the same class. 

After Skip, Peter was left as nothing but a husk of the once bright Star Ned had fallen in love with. Because Ned loved Peter with every single fiber of his being as one could only love their best friend. Because they were NedandPeter, two halves of a whole and Ned couldn’t help but mourn the Black Dwarf Peter had become. 

And then the impossible happened and it felt like for the first time in his young life, Ned could breathe easy without that protective worry for his best friend hovering in his lungs. 

In the privacy of his mind, Ned liked to believe he could accurately measure his best friend’s sudden switch in a vicious correction of the abbreviations that haunted Peter; B.S. and A.S.

Before Stark and After Stark. 

Before Stark, those tiny embers flared up in tiny wisps, teasing Ned with memories of late-night ice-cream runs and howling laughter at stupid Youtube Poop videos. 

After Stark, the inferno locked away in Peter’s birdcage of a heart were roaring to life, burning in a similar intensity to so long ago. 

Ned held a key to those locks, to those bars that trapped that inferno up. Aunt May did as well, holding her set and Ben’s close to her own heart. 

Ned wondered if Tony Stark realized just what he’d been given when Peter let him in. 

Because Peter was shining in ways he hadn’t for years, the heat of his looks and his words making even Flash pause in his usual routine of being an ass. Because like Ned, Flash remembered a Parker from Before. Just, unlike Ned, Flash never understood the reason for the sudden withdrawal and had acted in the only way a child could - by shunning and hating any changes in his life. 

Because the laughter that ripped from his chest was loud and obnoxious and music to Ned’s ears. It was laughter that wasn’t smoldered behind hands or choked away in fear of people finding those bruised handprints seared into his flesh. 

It was the laughter of a healing soul and Ned was so grateful. 

There would always be a Before Skip and an After Skip, but what came After? 

Promise for something Better. 


End file.
